When it comes to handguns, what do women really want? Which guns fit their hands best? What do NRA Instructors need to know — and what lessons can be learned from female NRA Certified Instructors — when it comes to women and gun selection? American Rifleman’s Ann Y. Smith set out to answer those questions with a project that involved 35 women shooting 18 different guns — many of them touted as “female friendly.” What did she learn? Attend the special presentation and find out for yourself.

About Ann Y. Smith

Ann Y. Smith is the Senior Executive Editor, digital, for American Rifleman. An NRA Life member, Ann joined NRA Publications in March 2001. Within a year she was named managing editor, then executive editor, of NRA’s Woman’s Outlook (2002-2006), NRA’s first Official Journal to address the shooting, hunting and Second Amendment interests of NRA’s female members. In 2007 she became the first editor in chief of NRA Publications’ newly formed E-Media department, overseeing the development of several award-winning web properties, including AmericanRifleman.org, AmericanHunter.org and NRAFamily.org.Prior to NRA, Ann worked for the U.S. State Department (U.S. Information Service), at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium. There she interfaced with the international community, and was responsible for aggregating a daily press kit of U.S.-related news for analysis by U.S. diplomats. She also coordinated official U.S. press briefings for a Brussels-based corps of international journalists, and helped to plan industry/corporate U.S. exchange visits for European counterparts.Ann’s earlier journalism career included life in San Diego, Calif., where she was editorial coordinator for San Diego Woman magazine and the San Diego and Orange County Relocation Guides. She later joined the San Diego-based Firearms Marketing Group as managing editor for American Handgunner, GUNS Magazine and Shooting Industry. Prior to that she was an editor for a variety of east coast-based publications.Ann fired her first handgun as a teenager in 1981 (a Colt Python), and learned to shoot skeet and trap during her college freshman year at the University of Maryland. She is active in most areas of recreational shooting, and is passionate about encouraging women to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Outside of NRA, Ann has trained at the Gunsite Academy in Paulden, Ariz., with some of the country’s most renowned instructors. She took part in her first official big-game hunt in 2003, harvesting a Texas whitetail buck, whitetail doe and a javelina, and has since hunted various North American game, including pronghorn, mule deer, turkey and a variety of upland birds and waterfowl.